Cooler Master Xcraft Lite RX-3SB review

It looks the part - once you manage to get your drive in

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Our Verdict

Does a good job in the end, but difficult to get the drive into, with the instructions providing little help

For

Good looking

Sturdily built

Against

Difficult installation

Ropey instructions

Installation isn't exactly the Xcraft's strong point. It's a sleek enough case - ours came in fetching piano black - and your hard drive will certainly look special once it's tucked away inside and partially illuminated by the blue LEDs on the front.

The big problem is getting your drive in there in the first place. Prising the lid off is a struggle despite the unit being tool-free, and once you've plugged in the cables by hand and balanced your hard drive on the springy mounting pegs, you're tasked with getting the lid back on. It took us 20 minutes.

The English instructions - apparently translated by a non-English speaker - just compounded our pain.

Once the drive's in, though, it's a relatively quiet assembly, and the case seems well ventilated. Its sturdiness is its undoing in a way, however, because the Xcraft is basically a big hefty rectangle.

It's narrower than the Icy Dock by a good inch, and lighter too, but we don't get the same sense of style as we do from rival enclosures.